The Debt Dialogues [Episode 22]: Amity Shlaes on the Great Depression

The Debt Dialogues is a weekly podcast that aims to educate young people about the welfare state and how it will affect their future. In this episode, I interview Amity Shlaes, author of The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, about the cause of the Depression and how it made possible the creation of the American welfare state.

Topics include:

Different theories about the cause(s) of the Great Depression

How the Depression changed the way Americans thought about the role of government

The myth that Herbert Hoover was an advocate of laissez-faire capitalism